


Major Story

by Nomad (nomadicwriter)



Category: Blackadder
Genre: M/M, Yuletide Treat
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-22
Updated: 2020-12-22
Packaged: 2021-03-11 05:15:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,833
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28249731
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nomadicwriter/pseuds/Nomad
Summary: Blackadder schemes to take advantage of Darling's talents.
Relationships: Edmund Blackadder/Kevin Darling
Comments: 46
Kudos: 68
Collections: Yuletide 2020





	Major Story

**Author's Note:**

  * For [twoam](https://archiveofourown.org/users/twoam/gifts).



The sight of Baldrick trying to operate a pencil was rather like watching a monkey that had been trained to use a hammer. Technically very impressive for a beast of so little intelligence, but a worrying omen of impending brain injuries all round.

At the latest _scritch scritch scritch_ of another few letters being painstakingly mined out, Blackadder sighed and lowered his own book. "Baldrick, what - and I acknowledge I will probably regret asking you this - exactly are you writing?" 

He'd been squinting at the page with his tongue poking out for the better part of an hour, which ruled out a letter back home. Since his mother couldn't read, they saved time by sending each other blank sheets of paper on a weekly basis. The ones he got back always arrived fully blacked out by the censors anyway, so the overall effect was much the same.

"I'm writing down the recipe for my famous seafood surprise to share with our boys in the newspaper," Baldrick said.

He pondered the unwarranted optimism of having assumed there was any chance he might _not_ regret asking. "Firstly, Baldrick, they are not 'our boys'," he said. "Fortunately, science has yet to come up with any method warped enough to allow the two of us to reproduce, and Mother Nature in her infinite wisdom has seen fit to ensure that no one else is likely to be willing to do so with you, either. Secondly, what newspaper?"

Baldrick produced a rumpled leaflet from a location best not contemplated too closely. The advanced state of decay suggested it had been exposed to the harsh conditions of the trenches for over a week, or Baldrick's trousers for several minutes. It was titled the _Bullet In Bully Tin Bulletin_ , which some smarmy git of a grammar school boy stationed miles away from the front was no doubt extremely proud of.

Blackadder sneered as he perused the pages of predictable drivel. "And what precisely is so surprising about this seafood recipe that you feel it merits inclusion alongside such artistic highlights as badly-drawn cartoons of cockneys 'wot don't speak proper' and limericks about French girls in search of large roosters?"

He tapped the side of his nose and leaned in confidentially. "It _doesn't_ contain any seafood."

"I see. Well, tragically for your culinary ambitions, we are required to keep to the rules of civilised warfare and only murder our own troops through imbecilic military decisions, inadequate equipment and sheer blind incompetence. The newspaper will survive without your contribution. Which is more than can be said for anyone who eats your seafood surprise."

He screwed the paper up and tossed it towards the doorway, where it bounced off the puffed-up chest of Lieutenant George on his way in.

"I say, is that the latest Bulletin?" He unfolded it with enthusiasm. "I have to warn you chaps, this howler is best not approached with a clean pair of trousers. Darned near wet myself reading some of the rib-ticklers in the last edition!"

"That's all right, sir," Baldrick informed him. "I never change my trousers."

Blackadder was mercifully saved by the telephone bell. "Good afternoon, Harrods menswear department." The voice on the other end was as predictable as everything else about this dreary existence. "You really must stop calling me at work like this, Darling."

The expected summons followed, and he stood to leave. "See if you can contain yourselves well enough to avoid widdling in the corners while I'm gone," he requested.

*

"Ah, Darling, I've missed your smiling face," he said as he arrived at the general's office. 

Darling gave a rather satisfying twitch. "That's _Captain_ Darling, Blackadder," he said with a scowl.

"There's no need to give me pet names, Darling, just Captain Blackadder is fine." He turned to greet the general as he strode in. "General Melchett."

"Blackadder!" he boomed. "We called you here to do something about the dreadful menace sweeping the trenches, depriving our men of their stomach for warfare."

"Ah, yes. Better rations would be a good start," he said. "Or failing that, perhaps at least issuing softer toilet paper."

"The _newspapers_ , Blackadder," Darling said sternly, leaning sideways to peer out from behind the general's bulk.

"Well, yes, they'll do in a pinch, but the paper quality is frankly appalling. Perhaps another propaganda leaflet? The men were very grateful for the last print run."

"We cannot have the men just writing their own news willy-nilly!" Melchett said, as ever continuing with his own conversation regardless of outside input. "What do they know about what's happening at the front?"

"You're right, it's certainly beyond the comprehension of anyone outside of HQ," Blackadder said.

"Exactly!" He harrumphed into his moustache. "The latest edition contained several sarcastic jokes suggesting our forces are disorganised, confused, and unhappy with their rations."

"Oh, I doubt very much that was sarcasm, sir," he said reassuringly.

"This is serious, Blackadder!" Darling said. "We cannot allow this kind of unofficial nonsense to be published unchecked."

"Well, of course," he said, nodding. "Naturally, we only want the men to read the official nonsense."

Darling narrowed his eyes suspiciously, but Melchett steamrolled on ahead. "Precisely! I want these unauthorised papers confiscated and burned. They should be stamped out at once. Make a note, Darling."

He scribbled obligingly for a moment, but then paused. "Um, sir, when you say that, do you mean you want them set on fire and then stamped out, or set on fire and not stamped out, thus leading to them being eventually stamped out?"

"Either way, sir, I'm afraid your attempts to stamp them out will likely be unsuccessful," Blackadder put in, glimpsing a looming opportunity.

"Well, obviously we can't stamp them out if we don't set them on fire," Melchett said. "But I don't see how we could fail to stamp them out if we do set them on fire."

"Possibly if they burn too quickly, sir?" Darling suggested, eager to be helpful.

"Yes, well, temporarily setting aside the issue of stamping or the lack thereof," Blackadder said, "my point is that confiscating the papers is only likely to increase their sales, since the men would just buy replacement copies."

"Then we should stop paying the men!" Melchett declared.

"A creative, but, I feel, possibly slightly unpopular solution," he said. "No, I suggest, in the finest tradition of the newspaper business, we create our own rival publication to steal all of their readers, thus causing these unofficial newspapers to fold."

"Write that down, Darling - papers should be stolen, folded, set on fire and then stamped out." Melchett frowned. "And where do you suggest we find the ink-stained wretch to produce this rival newspaper of ours?"

Blackadder inspected his nails. "Well, it would have to be someone good with words - possessed of _le mot juste_ , you might say. Someone eloquent, loquacious, indeed positivity sesquipedalian, with a rapturous grasp of prosody, yet preferably not overly contumelious or, of course, contumacious... as we used to say back in journalism school."

"You studied journalism, Blackadder?" Darling said dubiously.

"Oh, only in the most transient and peripheral of ways, though I flatter myself that my endeavours were, of course, compendious," he said

"By Jove!" Melchett clapped him on the shoulder almost hard enough to send him sprawling. "I think we've found our newspaperman. Darling, get this man a typewriter."

Darling hesitated. "Ah, General, if you recall, our last batch of typewriters were destroyed during the top secret operation to teach carrier pigeons to type their own messages."

"Ah, our faithful feathered friends." The general's gaze grew distant and wistful. "If only they were as accomplished at taking dictation as they are gentle and wise." He snapped out of the moment of reflection as if it had never been. "Well, then, give him yours, Darling, for heavens sake! The future of the war effort is at stake."

"But sir!" he protested, looking betrayed. "How will I fill out the requisition forms for our replacement order of digestive biscuits?"

"Hmm. That is a sticky wicket," Melchett admitted.

Fortunately, Blackadder was ready to cut in with a solution that, quite coincidentally, benefitted him enormously. "Of course, the typewriter will only be needed to produce the first sample newspaper," he said. "In order to win out against the unofficial papers, I suggest the editorial team be placed somewhere we can set up a more permanent printing press. Say, oh... perhaps Paris?"

"Well, rather you than me," the general said. "So far as I can see, any man who'd voluntarily give up his chance of serving at the sharp end to spend the war eating brie and surrounded by voluptuous French women would have to be mad as a badger."

"Yes," he said. "Well, I'll do my best to fit in."

*

Blackadder returned to the dugout with his borrowed typewriter, which Darling had handed over with all the suspicious reluctance of a man surrendering his newborn child to the tender mercies of the likes of, well, George and Baldrick. 

"I say, Cap, what's in the box?" George asked, perking up with interest. Not that he had many emotional states outside of 'annoyingly perky'.

But right now, Blackadder was too smugly self-satisfied to be annoyed. "This, George, is my ticket out of here," he said, patting the case as he set it down.

"Gosh. Well, I must say, sir, you're going to need an awfully big pair of trousers to keep that in your pocket!" he said.

"Yes. I'm sure if I need any storage space, I can find plenty behind your ears."

He opened the box, unveiling Darling's annoyingly pristine portable typewriter. Not so much as a toast crumb marred the keys - of course, _he_ probably got to eat a civilised breakfast tucked up in bed, the yellow-bellied swine.

Still, if all went well, Blackadder would soon be further away from the action than even Darling's cushy spot up at HQ. He set a blank sheet of paper in the typewriter. "Now all I need to do is come up with a few pages of mindless drivel that appeals to the lowest common denominator." And speaking of: "Baldrick!"

Private Baldrick appeared in the doorway, much like other privates a rather shrivelled and unappealing sight even when needed to fulfil a useful function. "Yes, sir, Captain B, sir?" he said.

"Regrettably, I need to pick that desiccated raisin that, for lack of a better word, we are forced to refer to as your brain." It was depressing to think of Baldrick as representative of anything bar perhaps the dangers of going for a drunken shag with members of a lower order of primates, but nonetheless, he was the closest thing to a window into the thought processes of the average Tommy that they had. "What sort of thing do you prefer to see in your newspapers?"

"Fish and chips," he said.

"Yes. Once again, Baldrick, your ability to limbo beneath the lowest of low hopes never ceases to amaze," he said. "And _other_ than fish and chips?"

Baldrick screwed his face up in deep contemplation. "Well, sometimes I like to have a nice pickled onion as well."

Possibly this knowledge-gathering process was going to require some quite specialised extraction tools.

*

Several hours later, the dugout was festooned with numerous balls of screwed-up paper, but at least Blackadder had a promising start on the latest draft. 

To be more precise, he had the word 'The'.

"It's a good start, a good start," George said, stroking his chin and nodding thoughtfully. "Makes a bold statement right out of the gate."

"Yes. Specifically, that we're going to be paddling upstream against a tide that stinks even worse than Baldrick's socks if we don't get our fingers out," Blackadder said.

"Er, point of order there, sir, I think you'll find that taking your fingers out actually makes it harder to paddle," he said.

"Thank you, George," he said tiredly. He pushed the typewriter away with a sigh. "It's no good. My mind is as blank as the list of military objectives we've achieved in the last three years. Baldrick, how's that list of titles coming along?"

Baldrick drew himself up proudly. "We've been brainstorming all afternoon, sir, and we've come up with a list of one."

"That's strictly more of a brain-dribble, but still, better than I expected. What is it?"

"The Newspaper," he said.

"The _Newspaper_ ," George echoed, spreading his hands expansively as if picturing it up on a banner. "I like it! Has a certain ring to it, doesn't it, sir?"

"George, the only ring this non-existent newspaper has is the one that you left on it with your coffee cup," he said. "No, we might as well face it. This is as likely to succeed as a publishing venture as _Queen Victoria's Bumper Fun Book of Ways to Keep Oneself Amused_."

"Oh, now, come on, sir," he protested. "You're about as brainy as a brain sandwich with extra brains!"

"Yes, well, I'm starting to think that might be detriment in a business that reports a wealthy man getting mugged as 'Yob Mob Rob Nob'," he said.

"Not to worry, sir," Baldrick said. "I have a cunning plan."

"Oh, joy." Blackadder laid his head down on his folded arms.

"So, you know how there's things that did happen and things that didn't happen, right, and news is supposed to be about the ones that did happen, right?"

"Spoken like a man who's never read the Daily Mail, but, yes, go on," he said impatiently.

"Well, why don't we just put in some stuff that's already been written down about things that happened?"

"I see. Baldrick, that plan would be widely regarded as both lazy and intellectually dishonest, which, frankly, makes it a shoo-in for the newspaper business, but regardless, there remains one major flaw. Where are we going to find a stash of someone else's papers to copy?"

"What about these ones that came in the typewriter box?" He waved some folded papers that had been tucked into the lid of the case.

"Baldrick, this is Darling's typewriter," Blackadder said. "He's about as likely to have written something interesting as you are to be asked to lead our nation's forces in a high-kicking chorus line at the Moulin Rouge. This is probably an order form for the general's latest vat of moustache wax."

All the same, he unfolded the pages, on the basis that any activity likely to annoy Darling was time well spent. The heading caused him to raise an eyebrow, and the first paragraph even more so.

"On second thoughts, you might be onto something after all," he said. "Get me that phone."

He sat down to enjoy a thoroughly educational read.

*

The dugout was dark as Darling appeared in the doorway, and he squinted warily into the shadows. "Blackadder? You said you were going to return my typewriter." 

Striking a light, Blackadder leaned back in his chair and lit the lamp, not taking his gaze off the sheaf of papers in his hands. "Of course," he said. "We could hardly deprive the world of your literary talents, Darling - or, should I say, Major Devlin Carling, hero of the Women's Auxiliary Balloon Corps?"

Darling went white. "That's a story submission for Boy's Own magazine!" he insisted, shoulders rigid.

Blackadder was fairly sure that wasn't the only thing that had been rigid when he wrote this sordid little tale. "Darling, that has to be the least convincing defence since Bloody Hands McMurdoch stood over the body of a man he'd threatened to murder, holding an axe and saying, 'It was me, I done it, I was the one what killed him.' I don't know what kind of boys you think read Boy's Own magazine, but apparently they buy it under plain covers and seek each other's company in the seedier parts of Soho. Not even that git Flashheart spends this much time oiling up the other members of his flying crew."

"That scene was absolutely necessary to drive home the themes of the piece!" he squawked, twitching madly.

"Yes, well, I think it's clear the theme is not the only thing your characters would be driving home given half the chance," he said. "Let me see, we have the shirtless whipping by the steely-eyed German flying ace, the frankly rather homoerotic interlude of being nursed back to health by a suspiciously well-groomed and muscular French farmhand, a certain amount of reunion groping, and..." He turned to the last page. "Ah, yes. The interrogation and I suspect only-too-literal debriefing by the dashing and oddly _familiar_ Captain Edgar Whitesnake."

"Well, every story must have its villain," Darling said, recovering a sort of queasy poise.

Blackadder peered at the pages. "Debonair and fiendishly clever?" he read. "Why, Darling, I never knew you cared."

"Artistic licence," he said quickly. He flinched as Blackadder tossed the pages aside and stood up into his space.

But right now there were bigger fish to fry than Darling's questionable literary ambitions. "Then I hope you're ready to put all that typing practice to good use," he said. "I need a newspaper that will convince General Melchett that I'm his man - or else he'll be finding out that Devlin Carling is _everybody's_ man."

*

Predictably, Darling caved like a Cornish miner on a trip to Cheddar Gorge, and before long Blackadder was holding a stack of neatly-typed newspaper pages in his hands. 

"I trust there'll be no need for any further... unpleasantness?" Darling said, swallowing.

"Not if this does the trick, no," Blackadder said, leafing through. "But I think I'll be keeping hold of Captain Carling's adventures until tomorrow, just in case you get a sudden attack of conscience overnight. If all goes well, 'Edgar Whitesnake' will be in gay Paris by tomorrow night, and the good captain will have to find someone else to cross swords with. Figuratively, I hope."

Even knowing that Darling would be scuttling off to a three-course dinner and soft bed miles back from the front lines couldn't dim his mood tonight. "The Tommy Times," he read aloud as he rejoined George and Baldrick. "It's twee, it's jingoistic, and it'll go down with its intended audience like Captain Carling's underpants. Melchett will love it."

"Permission to shout 'bravo', sir?" George said eagerly.

"If you really must."

" _Bravo_! I say, sir," he added, "must fess up that I've been keeping this under the jolly old hat thus far, but as it happens, I have a rather nice bottle of scotch from good old Uncle Algy stashed away-"

"In the trunk under your mattress, yes, I know," Blackadder said. "George, you're about as good at finding hiding places as an elephant that's just discovered Mrs Mouse's husband has come back to the mousehole early. I already drank it a week ago and replaced it with some of that godawful swill Baldrick's been brewing in an old boot."

"Oh, what?" Baldrick said in dismay.

"Still, dig it out," he said. "If I have to spend one more night in this place I might as well do it getting well and truly bladdered."

*

Blackadder woke up with a taste like a group of incontinent hedgehogs had been using his mouth as a student bedsit. He peeled his off from the table, which had acquired a distinctly sticky consistency he chose not to investigate too closely. Many things did, around Baldrick. 

"Ugh. Last time I woke up feeling like this I found out I'd got so _paralytically_ rat-arsed I thought it was a good idea to join the army." Of course, that it had been back in the days when military experience was a way to fill up the museums with all the stolen treasures you could loot and pick up interesting new drinks recipes. The last thing they'd wanted were enemies who were armed and ready to fight back.

Hauling himself the rest of the way up and focusing on his watch felt like too much effort right now, so he thrust his arm out in the general direction of Baldrick. "What time is it, Baldrick?"

Baldrick raised his head out of the mud and squinted at the watch. "It's... just gone half past eleven, sir," he said.

"Oh, that's nice, almost lunchtime," George said, surfacing from his bunk.

"Yes. Nice as it is to believe the army has graciously allowed us to skive off duty and have a lie-in," Blackadder said. "I suspect that it may not, in fact, be half-past eleven. Try again, Baldrick, and this time, do take note of the fact that one hand is shorter than the other - as, incidentally, one of yours will be if I snap your fingers off at the knuckles."

He pushed his grimy glasses up and peered at the watch face again. "Oh. Then it's five to seven, sir," he said.

"There, see, Baldrick? Was that really so- five to seven?" He bolted upright. "That overstuffed walrus General Melchett will be here any second. Where's the newspaper?" He looked around the dugout frantically. The events of the previous night were a blur, though he vaguely remembered singing a song about a little goblin and trying to figure out if there was anywhere within fifty miles of the front line he could order a kebab.

"Newspaper, newspaper..." George hummed thoughtfully, tapping at his laps and staring into the distance with no evidence of urgency.

"Here, sir." Baldrick proffered his crumpled copy of the Bulletin.

Blackadder lifted the hat off his head, whacked him hard on top of it, and then put it back. "Not _that_ paper, you idiot. The one that Darling typed." A bellow like a deranged moose sounded out in the trenches, and he turned away. "Too late, he's already here. I'll stall him - just bring it out when you find it, and tell them you just finished typing it."

He hurried out into the trenches. "Ah, General Melchett! May I say your moustache is looking particularly bushy this morning."

"You may," Melchett said graciously.

"Blackadder," Darling said with a suspicious twitch, hovering at his shoulder.

"Darling. I'm sure you're pleased to be among the men again," he said.

"Naturally," the general answered for him in a genial rumble. "I've always said you were a real man's man, haven't I, Darling? I know how much you admire our brave fighting chaps and their spunk."

"So I've heard," Blackadder said.

"Now, where's this newspaper of yours?" Melchett clapped his hands together. "I think we'd all like to see something suitably stimulating that can get the men up and raring to go."

"Darling in particular," he said. "As it happens, my secretary is just putting the finishing touches on it now." He raised his voice to an impatient bark. "Baldrick!"

Private Baldrick emerged, holding a sheaf of papers out in front of him stiff-armed. "Here it is, sir, I have just finished typing it," he said, with all the naturalistic delivery of a six-year-old shoved on stage in the role of shepherd number three in the school nativity play.

Blackadder gestured to the dugout entrance. "Why don't you take a seat and have a read of it, sir? I'm sure George has some of that nice scotch of his left over from last night." One waft of those noxious fumes and Melchett was bound to agree with anything he said, up to and including the fact he was a polka-dot giraffe named Cecil.

He was about to follow before bird brain and turd brain could find some way to ruin his plans, but of course Darling had to go and stick his oar in. "Blackadder. I believe you had something of mine to return?" he said.

It was a shame to have to give up such delicious blackmail material, but he wouldn't put it past Darling to find some spiteful little way to put the boot in with his transfer papers if he didn't. Besides, there would be need to extort favours off Melchett's office boy when he could buy them from French prostitutes.

"Of course." He reached into his inner pocket where he felt the crinkle of the pages he'd tucked for safekeeping. "We wouldn't want these falling into the wrong hands - though, frankly, I'm most worried about what you get up to when you have them in yours."

Darling unfolded the pages to check they were all there, but after a moment he politely handed them back. "Oh, no, these are the newspaper pages," he said.

"Oh, I am sorry." Blackadder took them automatically - and then their gazes locked as they shared a brief moment of perfect horror.

"General Melchett!" Darling blurted hurriedly. There was a brief jam in the doorway as they both tried to cram through it at once.

"Darling, _what_ is this commotion about?" Melchett said crossly, rising from his chair. "You're interrupting my reading of this fine, stirring paean to manly camaraderie."

"You... like it, sir?" Blackadder said cautiously.

"Like it? I almost shed a tear," he said. "Just the kind of thing to excite the blood! Makes me nostalgic for my old school days - oh, the stories I could tell you about me and Todger Barlowe and the Society of the Oozing Crumpet." For a moment he was distant and wistful, then he crossed the floor to throw an arm round Blackadder's shoulders, squeezing hard enough to make bones creak. "I can see I've misjudged you, Blackadder. It's obvious now that you're my kind of chap."

"Yes... I'm slightly concerned as to where all this is leading, General," he said.

"Why, to your new publishing venture, of course!"

The sensation of rising hope was so unfamiliar he briefly mistook it for a resurgence of Baldrick's experiments in footwear-based brewing. "So, I'm off to Paris, then?" he checked, driving a sharp elbow into Darling's stomach before he could get any bright ideas about claiming authorship.

"Darling, don't slouch," Melchett said. "Paris? It would be a crime to send the author of this masterpiece to that rat-infested dump."

"London, then?" he dared to dream.

The general gave a sheep-like mwaaah of a laugh. "Surely you jest, Blackadder! Any fool can see that this is the work of a man who positively yearns for the company of his fellows. It would be cruel to deprive you of your place here among them at the front."

Of course. Dull depression yawned again. "As opposed to depriving me of sleep, food, privacy, intelligent conversation, and the ability to go for a pleasant evening stroll without being immediately blasted to smithereens by several million armed Germans?" he said.

"Exactly!" Melchett said. "I'm sure we can find some crusty old has-been stationed miles behind the lines to knock together a few ripping yarns to entertain the men."

"Well, you'd be ideally placed to look for one, sir," he said. Once again the world horked up a hairball in the path of his plans.

The general turned to his aide, giving him a hearty slap on the back that almost knocked him off his newly regained feet. "I suggest you stick around, Darling, and try to soak up some of this man's passion. It's just the kind of goosing a nancy boy like you needs to help keep your pecker up."

He strode out, and Blackadder turned his gaze to the two examples of manly camaraderie he'd been left here to enjoy, still standing to gormless attention by their bunks. "George, Baldrick, dismissed. I'll be needing the dugout to practise my entry for the twenty-four-hour non-stop swearing competition."

"Gosh. Good luck with that, sir," George said.

"My mum always used to say 'fiddlesticks' when she was annoyed," Baldrick volunteered.

"Yes, well, if only she'd stuck to fiddling with sticks, perhaps the world would have been spared your gurning face. _Get out_."

To his annoyance, another unwelcome face was also hanging around like a stubborn grease stain. "Don't let me keep you, Darling, I'm sure you've got buttons to polish."

"So your blackmail scheme comes to nothing after all, Blackadder," Darling said, practically bouncing on his toes as he smirked. "You have no hold over me now."

Awfully smug for a man who'd only scraped through with his reputation intact because Melchett was about as oblivious as an octogenarian whose twenty-year-old wife went off with the driver every day to have afternoon tea with her mother.

"Oh, I wouldn't say that, Darling," Blackadder said, backing him towards the bunk. "I could do with a way to work off some frustration." And Darling's literary efforts had given him some ideas. He cocked his head thoughtfully as Darling quailed. "Now, let me see, how did that scene go? Something about bravely withstanding Captain Whitesnake's attempts to seduce our hero away from the straight and narrow? Well, let's see how long you manage to hold out..."

Not very long, as it turned out.

Fortunately, since Darling was a swotty little perfectionist and Blackadder had no inclination whatsoever to show him any mercy, there would be plenty of future chances to practise.


End file.
